The Tree
by Furius
Summary: A tree's view on Feanor and Nerdanel throughout the years.


He was planted haphazardly in the inner garden right beside the terrace, someone's first effort. The girl who was patting down the earth had been distracted by a trumpet call and did not came back until a week later. But he was strong, and the earth of Valinor was blessed, so he had grown in the noontide of Valinor, green and tall save for a slight tilt of the stem that reached out to overshadow the white pavement. But he knew the girl was glad of it, for she tended to him almost daily with a care she did not show to all the others, and tickled his bowed stem when she flipped her bright coppery hair out of her face.

A boy came with her once, and paid him no attention as his thirst was eased but stood a little aside, a storm in his face and storms in his eyes.

"I'm not going in." The boy said to the girl. Her name was Istarnie, a young of a great smith who smelled like smoke. "And that tree's in the way," the boy eyed it up and down, "it would make for good fuel."

"Yes you are." Istarnie said, standing up and turning to the boy. "You're only going to be in trouble later. And this is MY tree, I planted it. Don't leave the subject."

There's magic in the possessive. The boy growled, the tree supposed, a bit like the housecat that was at the time on his uppermost branch. And that, was the end of that.

They left, stayed in the house. The boy must have left when he was asleep during Telperion. A faint peculiar scent lingered in the air when he woke up and found the girl staring at him.

"Are you afraid...I think you must be..but you are the first thing he has commented on of mine ever.." It took a while for him to realize that Istarnie was talking to him. A smooth hand traced a broad leaf. "He is suppose to be fire, but lately I think he's more salt than anything else. And he blames it on me, only because I told my father when he asked and now he's summoned back to his father's house. Brat. Still, I'm the only one he could blame, he does not speak much to others."

The tree, however, from the knowledge that came with everyone of Yavanna's creatures, knew that fire is a terrible thing and thought Istarnie unwise in taking him so close.

The girl left. She had no siblings and no friends for she tagged on her father's heels then. But secrets were hardly things one tells a tree.

-=-=

The tree grew, the girl grew, the boy grew, and the tree began to notice the boy smelt of fire rather than salt. He was not happy. He closed his eyes, rested, and grew even taller until one day he found Istarnie's on her back beneath the boy, a youth now, the heavy fall of copper and black mingling on the grass.

They were laughing, breathy words woven in between. The tree, shocked, and somehow deeply offended, grumbled. The earth shock slightly, enough that a fragile piece of glass sculpture fell and shattered, irritating the glass-blower. He came, not in anger or to blame, but to ask whether Mahtan's workshops and forges are well, and found his friend's daughter tangled with a dark-haired youth.

"Istarnie!" He cried and pulled the boy off of her.

"No, really, it's all right, he tripped." Istarnie explained, standing and brushing leaves and grass out of her tunic, an apologetic look in her wide eyes, "But thank you for coming by," She was smiling now, "My begetting day is coming up..."

The glass-blower laughed, the boy standing close to a grove of trees forgotten. "It is, of course, a secret." He said, handsome features brightening mischievously, "And there are still days. Worry not, I have it ready for your feast, as long as either you or your father have invited me."

The tree was indignant, but he could not explain himself.

Whistling, the man passed through the gates, mind upon his present, and future work formed from breath and pincers.

"That was close." Istarnie said, and sat down on the grass.

"Very." The youth came and sat in front of her. He had grown indecent, the tree thought, that face should never have been. That face was near Istarnie's.

"And here is closer." She said, and leaned forward so their lips met then parted. A strong, elegant hand cradled the back of her neck, disappearing in her hair. Her own arms held him in a firm embrace. The kiss ended after a time, , both breathless and flushed. He lay beneath her, shirt askew.

"Student of Rumil indeed." There was a smirk in her voice, she wetted her lips with her tongue "Feanaro?"

Feanaro, the tree noticed disdainfully, was not paying attention to words. It was a while until he replied, running a finger up and down her arm. She did not seem to mind however, busy as she were doing the same.

His limbs were fairly shaped, the tree thought.

"Yes?"

"Do you really think my father shall be displeased."

Feanor's face darkened. "He would not let me see you at least."

"He does not let you see me now, for fear that you would lead me into the depraved world of Tirion's court."

For fear of that your affection is being played were the exact words, but she chose not to remember it. What she said was implied from conversations at dinner.

"You have a balcony..."

If a tree could have a headache, this one did, especially when he became a ladder that night, and more nights than he would like to count afterwards.

-=-=

Then, one day, it all disappeared. Istarnie and her pretty fire, and the soft steps that had became silent. Feanor had learnt to climb trees without ruffling leaves.

Mahtan's household was frantic.

Once, the great smith himself came out and stared at the tree. His gaze traveled up the trunk, and to the thick branch scarcely seven paces away from his daughter's window. The tree would tell him of many things that passed in the nights but Mahtan would not understand.

Galdor, the Lord of the House of the Tree would know, but Galdor dislikes every smith other than his friend Enerdhil, or so the dandelions say.

As the tree understood it, there was a feast, judging by the bustle of finery merely a week past. Incessant whispers drifted out of Istarnie's room at nights, but she had left with Mahtan, for Feanor had went back to his father's house earlier.

Apparently, they did not come back.

A veritable hurricane of moods took Tuna. The Noldor nobles lost Finwe's son and questioned Mahtan, who in turn, questioned THEM. And they were not imposing , for AulÑ stood by his favorite pupil. But hurricanes pass into mere resentment. Bliss was not unmade as those at Taniquetil remain unshaken so they knew Finwe's son and Mahtan's daughter were well.

Resigned, they waited.

The tree felt in himself a new ring when she came back with Feanor. a funny-looking red-haired child in tow. The child was still a mere babe, and could not walk, but its eyes were very bright and seldom closed. The shock of cherry fuzz on his head promised a darker color when he was grown. He was swaddled in rich, shimmering fabric and was very peacefully smiling at everything.

There were no more visits to the balcony. Birds nest began to reform within the branches of the tree. Feanor walked through the front door now. Istarnie's room remained hers, though she no longer slept there. Nelyafinwe, or Russandol spent his time around the gardens once he was old enough. A nurse stood by while his parents went into the workshops in the mornings.

They made him a small wooden horse that could walk and canter, but more often, the tree found the child staring at it while sitting on the swing Feanor that hung from the branches, stroking a soft, fuzzy kitten of the housecat with wide, gray eyes. On the grass, its siblings were playing with each other.

"Russandol, would you like a brother?" Istarnie came in and asked her son, "Someone to play with you?" Russandol was nearly a year old. "I have the kittens to play with me, but," He hesitated, looking wonderingly at his mother, "If you insist, I would not mind."

Istarnie looked rather startled. The tree wished that he could tell Istarnie that Mahtan came and conducted rather one-sided conversations with his grandson quite often.

Later on, he suspected the question was rather redundant. Judging by the giggling dandelions that floated by, Feanor and Nerdanel found a piece of ground for their new house and rather liked it.

The second one practically chirruped. The voice was pleasing, the tree supposed, if one liked that sort of warbling and was unused to it. Makalaure they called him, and he was the darling of Finwe as Maitimos was of Mahtan. Finwe came once to speak about a festival and the ants became rather excited. He was feeding Makalaure honey cubes, something either of his parents would've surely objected.

They came back less and less frequently, and the tree sank into memories.

Then she came back, alone.

"Well, look how you have grown." She said to him. She was older now, fully-grown as the Noldor counted it, but there was something in her voice infinitely girlish. She sat down on the swing for a while, and patted his trunk. "You are definitely in the way now, but I suppose they must avoid you. You are too full of the past to be trimmed or cut down." Her voice had grown hoarse, and a tear. The tree had never seen her cry, never felt the hot, salty burn of a tear before.

She came when she was sad.

But Feanor came for her, meek and contrite. He did not use the front door, but climbed over the walls again and up the tree. There are now merely three paces between the balcony and the nearest branch. He was taller, too. A light jump and he saw Istarnie there.

The tree thought he had never heard so much quiet weeping in all the years he had been alive.

They sat beneath his thick foliage one summer morning and conceived a quiet child, as golden and as fair as the light that had scattered between the tree's leaves and onto the pale skin of their twined bodies.

He was named Tyelkormo, and he liked following rabbits to their warrens. A very dignified child with the animals, thanking and apologizing to them when he learned the words, the tree pitied him when they scolded him for the mud on his clothes.

"Carnistir, Carnistir, CARNISTIR!" Went the cries. The tree woke up and found Istarnie and Feanor looking panicked one morning. There was a violent chuckling coming from behind one of the bushes. Feanor went and plucked a ruddy face child out. The child's laughter had a hysterical note in it. He was hefted into his father's arms, where he struggled futilely. He bent down and pecked at a bundle his mother was holding as they went into the house.

"Look, it's Atarinke!" Istarnie said as she walked pass him, showing what lies in her arms, another wide-eyed babe, as funny looking as the first, with raven dark hair. She stopped before him, "Atarinke, say hello to my dear tree."

This one would look like his father, the tree thought disdainfully, practically indecent once he came of age. The child looked at him with a serious expression and blew a bubble.

Well, I don't like you either, and don't even think of firewood. The tree thought, and snarled. The child yawned.

Istarnie cooed over the child, and she was practically beaming.

Perhaps it was only several years, or perhaps it was a couple of decades.

Sounds chased each other in the passageway. A small streak of scarlet ran out, neatly avoiding gnarled roots and ducking thick branches until one, accidentally, inevitably knocked him on his head. Rather, he knocked the branch with his head.

The russet child sat down and began to cry.

A moment later, there was another, who patted his likeness on the shoulder while building up sniffles.

Just then, a squirrel scurried out of the undergrowth and ran up the trunk, and distracted them.

Replica, these two, appraised the tree, as if for firewood.

It must be something inborn with smiths, or just his line, the tree thought. But the next thing they did was to climb until Maitimo, tall and slim with youth, saw them from a window and ran out, a very Finwian looking elf following closely behind; there were gold clips in his hair.

Teluifinwe and Pityafinwe were very very young and very very small. The tree had grown old. The old swing on his branches was fixed, and their happy shrieks and laughter amused him.

He loved the picnics they held under his leaves, but most of all, he loved Istarnie and Feanor and their children- the flashes of their lives threaded with his.

-=-=

The ginger and dark haired children(one golden, the tree added, though it's hard to see under their strange helms) rode in a long column, covered in silver that shone in the dark. Someone rode up, a dark braid with gold clips were visible, the owner laid his hand on the arm of the tallest of the Feanorions, who loosened the reins to grasp the hand. From the high vantage point on his topmost bough, the tree saw them stop someway outside the gates. The foremost dismounted, Feanor.

He came in, his steps silent by habits though by his side, his sword clanked with each stride.

He was halfway up the tree before the Istarnie's silhouette was visible, "Please." Feanor said, and reached out a hand, "Come with me, let me up."

From the window, Istarnie stared at the outstretched arm to the shadowed face beneath the bright helm, and snuffed out her lamp. Feanor let out a long cry, startling several birds to take flight. He jumped back onto the ground, silent as always.

The shift of metal was loud and grating.

The land was dark, though it is not cold. The earth was warm, and for the tree, that had to be enough.

Feanor started to walk away before he stopped. He turned, and seemed to stare at the tree. A thousand emotions flickered across his face.

The tree stared back, unflinchingly, eyes in its bark, eyes in its leaves. And Feanor's blade fell.

The tree did not fall, but it hurt. He bled.

Feanor walked out of the inner garden, outside of the eerily silent courtyard.

There was one lingering glance from him as he mounted again.

And an echoing one from Istarnie's room. The tree saw it from a shoot just touching the old balcony.

But the tree hurt, and he could not speak.


End file.
